The National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis -- Applying innovative science and technology to on-the-ground natural resource management
The National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, in the College of Forestry and Conservation, develops innovative technology and information management systems, trains future natural resource professionals, and conducts research to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of wildland fire and land management.
Over the past seven years the NCLFA has developed new geospatial products to help managers use data more efficiently, conducted cutting edge research on applying laser altimetry and other advanced technologies to forest and fuels management, deployed innovative remote fire surveillance systems on active fires, and created tools that help natural resource managers to make informed management decisions. Underlying all of its projects and services are the relationships the NCLFA has developed and nurtured with the fire and natural resource management community. Some recent projects are highlighted below:
In June, the NCLFA completed development of the Northern Rockies Fire Restrictions web site
Northern Rockies Fire Restrictions web site where the public can check on the restrictions and closures that are in place on public lands during the 2008 wildland fire season in Montana, Idaho, North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota. The site compiles all restrictions information in one location and uses a map interface so that the public can easily search for their affected area.
During Wintersession 2008, two NCLFA professors and six students participated in a prescribed burning practicum for ecological objectives. Their work supported longleaf pine restoration on Nature Conservancy and State lands in Georgia. The class gave the students — two graduate students and four undergraduates all with experience as wildland firefighters who are studying forestry or natural resource management — an opportunity to fill fire roles that they might not do in a normal fire assignment. As students rotated through positions and responsibilities, they learned how to put together organizational structures to accomplish their goals.
Earlier this summer, four NCLFA staff spent several weeks at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, expanding the long distance data and communications network
they constructed there in 2006. The network allows park managers to monitor fires in the remote interior of the Park via cameras attached to the radio network hubs and provides communication and data links from Park headquarters to the staff working in remote locations. The Denali installation allows the NCLFA to test the robustness and durability of data and communications networks, which it also deploys on wildland fire incidents. In 2007, the NCLFA team installed wireless, networked surveillance cameras on the Tolo and Domke fires in Washington to provide images of the fire to the fire managers, thus saving those managers from costly and risky helicopter flights. The data was also fed into a public information web site, developed by the NCLFA, that allowed the public to view real-time images of the fires.
Ph.D. candidate Erik Hakanson is conducting research on institutional factors affecting the use of decision support tools and ecological data in fuels management project planning level in the U.S. Forest Service. He studied the decision support process used in managing wildfires in Northern California this summer; that research will help the Fire Center and other research partners develop decision support tools and applications to help fire managers make informed decisions."
This year the National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, the Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), and the University of Idaho formed a new partnership to facilitate science and integration that improves the effectiveness of fire management. The partnership brings together the research and applications of each partner in a common effort to apply science, knowledge and technology that can lessen the uncertainties in land management decision making. The partners are: from the RMRS — LANDFIRE, Fire, Fuels, and Smoke Program, Research Development and Application unit; from University of Idaho — Fire Research And Management Exchange System; and from the University of Montana — NCLFA.